Project Description
The Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way’s network (client base, community partners, donors, volunteers, etc.) lacks cohesiveness and communication. Currently, there is imbalance in resources amongst community organizations. For example, the grand sounding organizations tend to grab more attention and donations than the others, thus creating unnecessary surplus in resources. Moreover, due to a lack of knowledge about available resources at community organizations, constituents often find it hard to reach out for help. This issue in communication will prevent executing the next steps of GSVUW as a collective impact administration. The Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way’s current primary function is to broker individuals and institutions’ monetary donations to community agencies (money can be designated or undesignated). Although this system works, the potential of this network of organizations and donors has yet to be met. In addition to being the middle-man between donors’ money and places they can go to, United Way could facilitate a system that encourages strong collaboration and healthy communication between all participants in the basic needs effort. This way individual and institutional donors can directly aid specific programs, community programs work with each other to limit one another’s inefficiencies, and a common goal and agenda is established to eradicate major issues in the community. There is a common misbelief that lower income families in the Greater Susquehanna Valley don’t have smart phones. In fact, a vast majority of them do.
In order for these implementations to be effective, United Way must work to create a stronger network of community partners. They must get community partners to invest in a collective goal. Organizations need to have a clear mission to prevent overlap and egoism from disrupting effectiveness. Mutual priorities need to be set in order to have more responsible allocations of donations.
Goals
– Design a technology platform that is able to facilitate connection and seamless communication among the members of United Ways’ network, most importantly community partners
– The platform should ultimately be able to reduce inefficiencies associated with duplication of work, lack of communication
– The platform should have an easy to use interface which is easily understood and can also efficiently adopted by a new user. It should also be easy to train people to administer the platform
– The platform should feed into an information base that allows users to maximize their access to the community as well as connect to the community partners of United Way.
Constraints
-The information that is stored through the platform pertaining to the client, donor and community partners must be secure and only accessible to authorized personnel.
-The platform must be able to provide secure transaction functionalities to those who want to donate
-The platform must be built such that it is sustainable, it should be easy to maintain and administer
-The platform must allow for future developments to be made into it
Impact
A technological platform to facilitate communication and cooperation amongst the three counties under the GSVUW would greatly further United Way’s benefit to the communities. The need for such a platform has been established for several years, and was included in the Union Snyder Counties CAA 2016 Needs Assessment. A centralizing platform that streamlines resources would bring the nonprofit sector to the technological era of “real time,” so that out of date handouts/ contact lists/ directories are not inhibiting United Way’s work. Correspondence among community partners (funded and not funded) would harness the power of collective impact. Perhaps more fundamentally, the technological platform would hopefully improve access to basic needs. The Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way identifies the following as the basic needs the counties most commonly lack: toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush), diapers, mattresses, appliances, laundry detergent, kitchen starter sets, eyeglasses, furniture (dining room, living room, sofa), and feminine products. Meeting each community member’s basic needs is vital in promoting well being and sustainability of a community. The cyclical relationship between lack of basic needs and poverty is described by the term “tyranny of the moment.” An individual is forced into the tyranny of the moment when they are solely acting to survive, and need immediate action. One is not able to look outside the crisis long enough to think of the future- this is what makes poverty a perpetual cycle. Ultimately, a technological platform would propel GSVUW’s ability to improve the life of each member of each community within Union, Snyder, and Northumberland counties.
Group Summary
They want to improve the donation process in multiple ways. They want to distribute donations more evenly across different organizations/partners and also facilitate communication between donors and recipients. Create a platform to centralize and facilitate efficient, confidential, and user friendly transactions.
Identified Pains
Imbalance in donations to smaller community organizations
Difficulty in communicating between community donation organizations, donors, and recipients.
Proposed Problem Description
Need to be a centralized platform for organizing donations to community aid programs by ensuring communication between all parties involved.
Proposed Goals
- Create user-friendly interface for community programs to coordinate efforts
- Easy maintenance for platform
- Secure and confidential transactions/communication
- Make accessible for entire community
Brainstorming
Our takeaways from brainstorming were the need for a centralized donations system that focuses on donations to the organization as a whole rather than to individual regions. This will give GSVUW control of what projects receive funding and prevent project surpluses. Below is our brainstorming sheet.
https://docs.google.com/a/bucknell.edu/spreadsheets/d/1xm7hgOCPv7cW8JcZGNSHNdHymLT0VlvKBx9-o_nYFAw/edit?usp=sharing
Contributors
Jason Corriveau
Eric Marshall
Ben Matase
Anushikha Sharma
Jingya Wu
Brainstorming by
Dunni Adenuga
Lucas Nicolois
Matthew Rogge
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